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I'll try and get the thread on track. I thought Terrence's insights were good for LW. He's a valuable asset to the community and maybe he'll mention LW more in his future blogs.

I agree. The fact that Terrence put his hand in his pocket and bought the latest version of LW3D after spending a fair bit of time away from it says to me that (for NPR projects at least) some of LW's new toolsets have caught the attention of the professional animation artist.

Who knows, if he gives positive feedback on it's performance it may permeate into the news outlets and help raise the profile of LightWave once again.

Even if he critiques it, I would hope that it would be a balanced negative to positive ratio.

Personally, I'm really impressed with the leap in changes and additions from 2015 to 20119. I find the new overhaul extremely efficient in a lot of areas. Given how long Terrence has been away from LW it's going to be interesting to see hear his thoughts.

The point I think is not that pointing out solutions that other software has that are better is bad. Specific criticism is good. it’s the kind of blanket statements like how there are “hundreds of things in other apps that show how dated lightwave is” (paraphrasing an earlier post) that are just tiresome.

Which I said to merely to illustrate that its disingenuous for someone to point to a current tutorial of a different software which showed a similar technique that William Vaughan showed in LW years ago as a means to somehow counter whether or not LW workflow is outdated, especially when it wasn't that technique which was the cause of its favorability. And actually , it wasn't even a hidden attempt to say that "LW is bad", only to say that it wasn't really an apt correlation to make in the first place.

You go on to say that it doesn't help developers. Well if I need to point out that after NT conducted a survey about what could they do to improve modeling, not only did I give a genuine response, but I went on to make a lengthy video about some of the things I felt were needed to improve modeler. It wasn't negative, it was made completely with the notion of helping to giving suggestions to NT about what was needed for the modeling environment. So when you say trash talk or Fez says toxic, its merely me giving my opinion that just doesn't sugar coat the missteps taken with LW. When NT does something with LW that shows its modernizing it to reflect current day workflows, then I'll be full on compliments. This doesn't mean that LW developers aren't talented or that some of the features they have added in the last few versions haven't been good ones. But in my view, adding in such features while largely ignoring the larger elephant in the room with LW, which is its completely lack of proceduralism and consolidation of its modeling and layout environment (which has been talked about endlessly for years with little to no resolution). From the idea of modleing tools being promised in version 9 to Robs statement in 2018 that points, polys, and edges would now be recognized componenets in Layout (Plot twist: they aren't). This is where NT has failed LW in my view. The lack of commitment and resources to modernize LW. And the failure to market or support it. Paying developers to make something is not evidence of supporting LW. What is more telling is the complete lack of transparency of any intent that NT has for LW at all, lack of any type of support material or marketing (other than having some of your users do it for you) and as David Ridlen commented on a few months ago, NT's failure to reach out to studios or high profile artists in the trade to see if their needs are being met by the software. And it's sad.

All of these complaints, while valid, are useless and have been rehashed ad-infinitum. We are all well aware of the issues both in terms of legacy problems and constrained development resources that lightwave faces. If you know someone who is willing to throw a few million bucks at lightwave in order to get that great big rewrite/modernization done, by all means tell them how to do it, but if that isn’t the case... why bring it up again?

Constructive critiques in a Modeler suggestion thread are not what I am talking about when I say trash talking. I was talking about this thread.

When someone starts a thread marveling that old low tech lightwave-esque solutions are re-appearing in modern blender tutorials and one of the the first replies is in effect that these things are a dime a dozen and not indicative of any inherent quality in lightwave workflows it’s just throwing a wet blanket on everything. Why do that if not just to rain on parades?

...This is where NT has failed LW in my view. The lack of commitment and resources to modernize LW. And the failure to market or support it...

So is it really your cross to bear telling everyone that LW marketing is a failure? Are you really adding anything by stating what is likely apparent to all...or at least covered in a previous post where your concerns were already expressed? Are you earnestly interested in LW's improved marketing by taking so many opportunities to engage in counter marketing?

After David Ridlen's post, there was response from NewTek. They understood the problem and took some action. It may not have ranked as your ideal expectation but it was something.

Originally Posted by hypersuperduper

...Why do that if not just to rain on parades?

That is truly the only reason that remains...especially as some individuals have stated they no longer use LW. Everyone here is well aware that if you want the developers to do something, you need to file a big report or feature request. The dev's are not wasting their time here in this forum.

If anyone is pooping on LW just to pull themselves out of some sadness or depression (like most cranky people on the internets), PM me with your address and I'll come share a hug and a pint of ice cream.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by hrgiger

...after NT conducted a survey about what could they do to improve modeling, not only did I give a genuine response, but I went on to make a lengthy video about some of the things I felt were needed to improve modeler. It wasn't negative, it was made completely with the notion of helping to giving suggestions to NT about what was needed for the modeling environment.

If anyone is pooping on LW just to pull themselves out of some sadness or depression (like most cranky people on the internets), PM me with your address and I'll come share a hug and a pint of ice cream.

....its disingenuous for someone to point to a current tutorial of a different software which showed a similar technique that William Vaughan showed in LW years ago as a means to somehow counter whether or not LW workflow is outdated, especially when it wasn't that technique which was the cause of its favorability.

Not disingenuous I hope, as there was never an intention to deceive anyone. Maybe I should have stuck to the one sentence of TW's musings, but got overexcited (as usual) and added my own thoughts on top.

No worries TheLexx, again it wasn't meant to be a criticism and I didn't meant to say you were trying to deceive anyone, just thought I would suggest that if you see the guys other recent videos, you'll see he takes very simple techniques and then jumps ahead to an obviously very polished and refined result and that's what makes the videos entertaining. That and his sense of humor.

One that I have noticed in general is that there is an internet trend to say that a company or product is now "dead" or "irrelevant". To be honest I spend most of my free time actually doing photography and I use a Canon Camera and Canon lenses. When I go into photography forums these days they say that Canon is dead and Canon is old and that now one should use Canon anymore. The camera and gear that Canon make are fine. Now I go over to 3D forums and they say that Lightwave is "Dead" or lightwave is too "Old". To be honest I do't think there is anything wrong with either Canon photography gear or Lightwave as a program. But what I have heard is a lot of people in lot of forums not just in 3D forums and Photography Forms declaring that X product and or company is dead and no one should use it or them anymore. I think those sorts of comments are more of a sign of the times and most definitely are NOT a true representation of how a company or product is doing in reality.

I like Canon and I like Lightwave and will continue to use them both. I also like the fact that you can buy Lightwave outright rather than renting. I gave up Adobe CC cloud and went back to my old version of Photoshop CS 5 so I don't have to "rent" software. I really do hope that Lightwave remains buyable or even if there is a renting option that there is ALSO an option to buy it outright as well as renting.

Sorry about my rant, I just get a bit sick of people saying that X product is dead when it clearly isn't. One thing that I would like Lightwave to support in the future is GPU rendering natively inside Lightwave "eventually". I say eventually because the even though GPU rendering is possibly the future I don't think that it has fully matured yet to take over CPU rendering. For hobbyists maybe but compare the workspace of an Nvidia 2080ti being 11gb of video ram compared to a HEDT which can have 128gb of ram or even a server that can have 2048gb of ram, I don't think the available workspace in GPU ram is big enough for massive complex scenes "yet". When GPU ram gets much larger in the 64gb+ region then it might be getting large enough for large scale projects. Anyway Lightwave is still relevant today and you just have to get used to people trolling on forums in all sorts of disciplines saying the X product and X company is dead, it is more a sign of the times and the sort of people that troll on forums.

Hi Michael, good to hear from you. What sort of projects do you do combining photography and Lightwave together ? Are you making digital props for still images and compositing, or little movies with DSLR filming. I like it when a guy isn't afraid to pick up a camera and start shooting something, away from the computer. Sounds fascinating with Lightwave..

At the moment I am just focusing on photography. I got Lightwave 9 many years ago and played around with it a bit but it was either my 3D modelling will take off or photography will and photography won. I decided to upgrade to Lightwave 2018 and and starting to get back in to 3D modelling. To be honest I quite a total newbie to modelling but in the long term I wouldn't mind doing composting between 3D assets and photographic backgrounds. Here is a link to my photography website if you are interested : http://www.michaeldbeckwith.com/

I am still learning the basics and it has been a long time since I seriously played with Lightwave. I bought the RH Lighting Shading and Rendering Training videos which I am going to get my head around soon. Thanks for the feedback.